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Ahmed Benaissa

Ahmed Benaissa

Acting

Biography

Ahmed Benaïssa (in Arabic: أحمد بن عيسى), born March 2, 1944 in Algiers and died May 20, 2022 in Cannes, is a Franco-Algerian actor. As a child, Ahmed Benaïssa was fascinated by the religious festivals of Nédroma where he spent his summer holidays and at the age of 9, in Mazouna, he played in front of another kid's 9.5mm camera for 1mn30! The magic of the show leads him to make his own cinema with cardboard. He joined his father in Paris who had retreated there after his release following independence activities in Algeria. In Oise, at the college boarding school, he became a designated projectionist. In 1960-61, he was in Lyon, aged 17, and frequented the local artistic scene at the Théâtre de la Cité. There he attended the Al Capone show, directed by Planchon. It's dazzling. When Algeria gained independence in 1962, the Lyon consulate included him in an animation course for compatriots from Algeria, then returned to Algeria, to Sidi Bel Abbès, where he entered the conservatory municipal then led by Saïm El Hadj. In July 1964, on a family visit to Algiers, he convinced Bénaïssa Boudia and Mustapha Kateb to join a training course for conservatory graduates at the initiative of the TNA (Algerian National Theater). After six months of training, he was ranked first in each discipline. Its first distribution was under the leadership of Alloula in 1966/67 in Monnaies D’Or. It will be breathtaking there. The TNA sent him to an advanced training course in France, then he moved on to the International Theater Institute. In 1968, he was in the Perennetti and Jean Marie Serreau troupe touring across Europe. Bulimic, he will do café theater and cinema. In 1971, he returned to Algeria, and discovered a theater in decline, emptied of its substance and devoted to propaganda. He distanced himself after three years on stage, and headed towards cinema, then in full development in Algeria. For ten years, he appeared on the big and small screens. In 1985, he returned to the theater, then in a context of "text crisis" like the country at that time. He became a director, first of a children's theater with a superb Kalila or Dimna. In 1996, he directed the Sidi Bel Abbès Theater, then in a lethargic situation since Kateb Yacine was no longer there. He injects new blood with talented young local artists: Abbar Azzedine, Yahia Benamar, Niddal el Mellouhi and others. He will return to TNA. His most beautiful creation was El Maghara El Mounfajira in 2007 based on La Grotte Éclatée by Yamina Méchakra adapted by Haïder Benhassine. Over two decades, he put on shows where he trained comedians in the acting profession. In the cinema, in France and in Europe, we continue to call on Ahmed for his "mouth", his precision and his talent. On May 20, 2022 at 4:30 a.m., Ahmed Benaïssa died at the age of 78, in full promotion of the film Goutte d'or at the 2022 Cannes festival, of a pulmonary embolism in his sleep in a hospital in Cannes where he had been evacuated after feeling unwell. He is buried in the El-Alia cemetery in Algiers.

Known For

The Arab
N/A

Haroun is an old bachelor who has lived in Oran for several years. A retired civil servant, he leads a reclusive life until the day he meets Kamel in a bar—a journalist to whom he tells an incredible story dating back to 1942. He claims to be the brother of ‘the Arab’ killed in a story told in one of the most famous novels of the 20th century, ‘The Stranger’ by Albert Camus. An Arab with an erased name: Moussa. Through anger, assertions, details, and confidences, Haroun finally convinces the journalist to listen to his story. His confession is a cry of freedom and distress—but above all, a cry of revolt: against an abusive mother, against a country that failed to achieve true independence, against a book, and against a famous French writer.

The Arab

2026
Le Clandestin
9.5

Nine people with Abdullah Le Clandestin (Illegal Taxi), in one car, on the way to Algiers.

Le Clandestin

1989
Papicha
7.7

Nedjma, an 18-year-old student passionate about fashion design refuses to let the tragic events of the Algerian Civil War keep her from experiencing a normal life. As the social climate becomes more conservative, she rejects the new bans set by the radicals and decides to put on a fashion show.

Papicha

2019
Close Enemies
5.9

Driss and Manuel both grew up on the same council estate. An estate where the sense of belonging to your patch is much stronger than the sense of belonging to a country, a nation or a culture... Manuel has assimilated this belonging, and he has even benefited from it and built his life on it. Driss, meanwhile, has shunned it. They will both have to face up to the consequences of their decisions – because they will each have a price to pay…

Close Enemies

2018
Ismael's Ghosts
5.5

Just as the disheveled and alcoholic filmmaker Ismaël embarks on a difficult new film project, his life is sent into a tailspin. His wife Carlotta, presumed dead for 20 years, come crashing back into his life creating chaos in his work and his current romantic relationship with the starry-eyed astronomer Sylvia.

Ismael's Ghosts

2017
Outside the Law
6.6

After losing their family home in Algeria in the 1920s, three brothers and their mother are scattered across the globe. Messaoud joins the French army fighting in Indochina; Abdelkader becomes a leader of the Algerian independence movement in France and Saïd moves to Paris to make his fortune in the shady clubs and boxing halls of Pigalle.

Outside the Law

2010
No image
9.0

Marzaq and his brother Zeno search for their family after spending their childhood in an orphanage following the death of their mother and the imprisonment of their father. Fate wills that they meet their younger brother Elias and also their father, who confesses that he wronged their mother and falsely accused her of her bad behavior and murdered her.

Wlad Lahlal

2019
Sons of Ramses
5.8

Thirty-four year old Ramsès has established himself as a clairvoyant in La Goutte d’Or, Paris. A shrewd manipulator and something of a poet, he built a sound business consoling people. Elusive and dangerous youths, freshly arrived from the streets of Tangier, disrupt his business and the whole neighbourhood. Until the day Ramses has an actual vision.

Sons of Ramses

2023
My Revolution
5.8

The Arab Spring in Paris: Head over heels in love, Marwann, aged 14, hopes to win over Sygrid by cleverly re-inventing himself as a revolutionary. Questions of identity arise in this romantic tale of first love

My Revolution

2016
The Epic of Cheikh Bouamama
9.0

The story of the film revolves around the epic of Sheikh Bouamama, a leader of the national resistance in Algeria during the French colonial era. The events are taking place in southwestern Algeria. The film also tells about different stages of the resistance, especially about one of the uprisings of the Algerian people, namely "the battle of the sons of Sidi Sheikh Bouamama", in which French General Leuti was appointed to try to suppress and end this resistance.

The Epic of Cheikh Bouamama

1985
Inland
5.2

Malek is a surveyor who is semi-retired, but at the urging of a friend he takes an assignment in western Algeria. The region in question was the site of frequent battles during the civil war, and an earlier survey that would make it possible to bring electrical utilities to the area was cut short by the fighting. While the zone is still unstable, Malek sets out to complete charting the area, and finds the locals regard him with suspicion and hostility.

Inland

2008
Étoile aux dents ou Poulou le magnifique
9.0

In the 70s, in the Goutte d'or district, three friends of Algerian origin: Poulou, a failed boxer, Amar, the clumsiest of thieves, and Jibé, a public writer for illiterate compatriots whose lives he knows in detail. As he betrays none of their secrets, he enjoys great prestige in the bistros where he works. The three of them lead a casual life, raising money by illicit means. It's only when Poulou and Amar leave that Jibé understands his isolation and marginalization. The images as well as the sounds help to reinforce the feeling that Paris is a city where he is both at home and a terrible stranger.

Étoile aux dents ou Poulou le magnifique

1971
Gates of the Sun
3.7

An Algerian secret agent has to destroy an undercover paramilitary organization that plans to strike against the country and its people.

Gates of the Sun

2015
Délice Paloma
5.9

Atop 17 flights of stairs, Madame Aldjeria rules over a crew of beautiful young women with the help of faithful son Riyad and clever lawyer Djaffar. Madame Aldjeria can set up a lonely old man with companionship or destroy the reputation of whomever the client wants humiliated. But when Riyad grows attracted to a beautiful new girl, Paloma, and a potentially huge new project runs into trouble, Aldjeria could lose everything she's worked for.

Délice Paloma

2007
Habib
4.4

The story of a young Belgian actor of Moroccan origin who agrees to play the role of Saint-François-d'Assise to put an end to the roles of nice Arabs that are stuck on his forehead in often mediocre films. Getting into the historical figure will represent a real challenge for him; when his father, settled in Morocco, suddenly returns to Brussels with a new wife, and the beginnings of Alzheimer's, he finds himself having to juggle between the expectations of his colleagues and his family.

Habib

2023
Arabian Nights
5.8

Georges's life is turned upside-down when he meets Yamina and decides to help her. While she seems to be persecuted and living in hiding, Georges's reality is rooted in a daily routine without any surprises. Yamina's stories fascinate him: her happy childhood under the rhythm of a song, the massacres in the 1990s in the Great South, as well as her difficulties in Algeria and then in France. Georges spends more and more time with Yamina and is totally disorientated the day she disappears without a word. As his search for her unfolds, Georges realizes that he knows nothing about her and that every person he meets who knew Yamina seems to have a different version of the young woman's life. Convinced that he must go to Algiers to save her, Georges abandons everything and sets out on a journey without any concrete destination. His quest finally leads him to an oasis in the Sahara, a desert that spreads as widely as this love story between Bonnevoie and Tabelbala.

Arabian Nights

2007
One Roof, One Family
10.0

Selim Mechoubine, a young man of 28, is the eldest of a large family. In the cramped accommodation he shares with his parents, brothers and sisters... he occupies the kitchen, the refuge of his dreams and his many fantasies. Selim, the court clerk where divorcing couples parade..., wants to get married. His mother finds him “the rare pearl”. But now, the bride's family demands that the couple have their own home... Selim's misadventure begins; he finds himself confronted with the problems of the housing crisis which forces him to begin a long quest, procedures, requests to find the sine qua non condition for his marriage.

One Roof, One Family

1982
The Last Passenger
N/A

A young jumps from a cliff. Before leaving forever, his soul pays a visit to his two impossible loves: a woman, and the stage of a concert hall ...

The Last Passenger

2010
Mostefa Ben Boulaïd
8.0

The film revolves around the life of the martyr Mustapha Ben Bouleid (1917-1956), who was a member of the Algerian National Movement, who worked with his comrades to explain the idea of the armed revolution in which he led in Aures region in 1954. The film depicts how Ben Bouleid traveled to a number of Arab countries Disguised to bring arms to Algeria for the revolution and how the French colonial forces arrested him in the Tunisian-Libyan border, and from there to Algeria to be sentenced to death.

Mostefa Ben Boulaïd

2008
Leila and the Others
9.5

The story of Algerian women trying to live in 1970s Algeria where the society is between conservative values and progressive modern Algeria.

Leila and the Others

1977